The end of part one

It is our last day in mainland Europe. The skies are grey, and getting darker with every kilometre. The wind is fierce, shaking the camper van as we struggle up the hills of the A16 en route to Boulogne, then tomorrow morning, Calais and the Channel Tunnel.
And yes, it has started raining. Altogether a miserable day and not just because of the weather.
I don’t want to stop driving, or to be more precise; I don’t want Nigel to stop driving. I want to explore every nook and cranny of France, visit every Greek island, and eat in as many Italian restaurants as my waistline and bank balance will allow. To say nothing of spending more time in Serbia, exploring Croatia and finding out if the Black Sea coast is a beautiful as the brochures say it is.
Europe is a treasure trove of exciting food and drink, gorgeous land and seascapes, and fascinating people, all shapes, sizes, religions and allegiances. I had not fully realised until now what an interesting continent we belong to, nor just how our fully our future, and our past, is intertwined.
There were many highlights.
We ate most the amazing fish soup in a century-old fish restaurant in the outskirts of Belgrade. It was the very essence of the sea, garnished with the freshest of herbs, served in a small copper tureen that looked as old as restaurant.
We savoured our first, and last, glimpse this year of the Acropolis as we meandered down Ermou Street in Athens.
We were astounded by the scale of Amiens Cathedral, which is twice the size of Notre Dame, to say nothing of the technical genius that built this most powerful of monuments.
We fell asleep to the sound of birds, and woke to the sound of birds.
We drove through the Alpine clouds, tasted champagne at 10.30 in the morning with a bunch of Belgians, danced in the streets of Belgrade during Eurovision, lit candles in Bulgaria’s Rila Monastery, got lost in Budapest and shared showers with total strangers, usually doughty Germans.
We drank beer in the same Hamburg street the Beatles started their career, relished the first sip of cold, cold Retsina, delighted in finding a bottle of Samos Muscat in a French supermarket. 

And I read, for the first time, James Ellroy’s amazing novel The Cold Six Thousand and for the second time, Andrew Nicoll’s equally compelling book The Good Mayor.
There have been some bad moments too.
Damaging the camper wasn’t much fun, nor were the wet few days we spent in Bavaria while it was repaired, though we did taste the best chocolate of the trip during a visit to Neuburg.
Imagine handmade white chocolate, infused with champagne and studded with real rose petals. Sounds wonderful? It is even better than that.
Saying goodbye to our grandson Kyle at the end of our detour to Crete to see him on his summer holidays was painful, but we cheered up considerably when we found out his father, our Sean, had proposed to his partner, Kyle’s mother, Karen, a few days later, and that she had accepted.
And we have had a few cold, wet days, when we were forced to don our ugly plastic anoraks just to go for a pee. But once the camper van was battened down, the red wine flowing and the West Wing on the MacBook, even the sound of rain on the roof became a comforting part of the trip.
We are going to spend the next week in Brighton, and this weekend with my sister Wendy and her partner Steven. We will catch up on all the family gossip, bitch about Big Brother, drink too much champagne and gorge ourselves on food and kinship. Wendy and I may even do a little light shopping, for essentials of course.

Blogging: a sad ego trip or the future of journalism?

I don’t know the answer to the question I have just posed. 

As a new blogger I often feel that my online writing is nothing more than self indulgence run amok; at other times I truly believe it is the future, not just of journalism, but of human engagement, from the personal to the political.

Barack Obama’s online campaign, with its social networks and personal blogs, shows just how powerful a tool blogging can be.
But I am sitting in the French sunshine, waiting for my fish stew to cook, and don’t have the energy to argue the case, for or against. Roy Greenslade however has put together a good piece on, where else but his Guardian blog. Worth a read.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2008/06/why_journalists_must_learn_the.html

Let them drink champagne

It was Napoleon, that most French of Frenchman, who described the UK as a nation of shopkeepers.
Little wonder that the general was surprised at our propensity for shopping, even back in the early 19th century, because from my experience of recent days, the French don’t shop.
Can you imagine the uproar if Tesco, or Asda, or any one of our nation’s supermarket chains decided to close for lunchtime – and not just an hour, but two and a quarter?
Of course you can’t because it just wouldn’t happen. We expect our shops, particularly the big brands, to be open at our convenience.
Not in France it seems. Yesterday we arrived at a reasonably large branch of Intermarche in a reasonably large town, Mourmelon le Grand (le petit is just down the road) at the reasonable time – or so I thought – of 2.25 pm.
“Pardon madame, nous sommes ferme,” smiled the manager guarding the entrance.
“Pardon,” I said, “je ne comprend pas”, and I didn’t mean his impeccable French.”
“We are not open for another five minutes,” he smiled, turning to explain to a group of German soldiers why they couldn’t stock up on beer.
Mourmelon le Grand is a garrison town, hence the soldiers, just in case you were thinking I had wandered on to the set of ‘Allo ‘Allo.
If I had taken the time to check the opening times outside I would have seen that the supermarket opened at 9.00 and closed at 12.15 for lunch, opening again at 14.30 until 19.15. At least you can buy a baguette and a bottle of vin ordinaire on your way home from work.
On Saturday the sign boasted the supermarket was “Non stop” from nine through to seven, but closed on Sunday. Now, there is a surprise.
Once allowed through the hallowed doors of Intermarche I stocked up on life’s essentials. Red wine, coffee, chocolate, some tomatoes noir and, of course champagne – I am in the region after all.
And I threw a baguette and some country bread into the trolley just in case it was too late to catch the boulangerie at the village where we were spending the next two days.
It was just as well, because Val-de-Vesle is a shopping desert. It is home to at least 1500 souls and the delightful municipal campsite hosts hundreds of visitors a month, yet there is no shop. 
I checked, twice, before asking at the campsite reception. “Qu’est que un magasin dans le village?” I asked in my version of schoolgirl French.
“Mais non,” she smiled, then gave me very complicated directions to the nearest shop, which seemed to be at least five kilometres away.
“Il est un cave de champagne dans le village,” or words to that effect, she said on finishing.
A champagne warehouse?
I smiled. When there is no bread, let them drink champagne. I like the French.

Handy hints

Three most useful things for life on the road

• Our MacBook, we use it for everything – storing photographs, writing home, doing our finances, watching the West Wing and when we have wifi it becomes our radio. We couldn’t live without it, or Martin Sheen. 
  
• A corkscrew and a decent coffee pot (thanks Wendy) – no explanation needed.
  
• A sense of humour and a sturdy pair of sandals.
  

Three (and counting) most useless things for life on the road

• A Swiss Army knife. I bought Nigel a state of the art one for this trip. I asked him the other day if he had used it. “I tightened the screw of my sunglasses with it,” was his reply.
  
• A sat nav – all you need is a Philips Multiscale map of Europe, and the aforementioned sense of humour for when you get lost in Budapest…and Neuburg…and Kavala…and of course, France.
  
• Heels, underwire bras, Mac make-up, more than one handbag, cheap, and not-so cheap costume jewellery and a very expensive Nicole Farhi silk chiffon shirt dress – yes I packed them all, and apart from the bras I have used none, and the bras only when absolutely necessary.  So will I take them to Africa? Of course, after all, a girl never knows when she might need a good frock…or handbag...or raspberry lip gloss.
  

Home sweet Hymer

I began this blog on an autobahn heading to Berlin, and seven weeks into the road to Dot, I find myself once more spending a sunny afternoon on German motorway, this time on the A8 heading towards Baden Baden and the last leg of our tour of Europe.
It is hard to imagine life without our motor home. What began as a pragmatic solution to the challenge of getting round as much of Europe as possible in eight weeks has become a way of life.
Nothing fazes us now. We coped when the gas ran out in Amsterdam and when two days later the fitting was condemned as illegal and highly dangerous by a Hymer expert in Osnabruck.
We laughed, nervously, when the lights failed as we entered an unlit tunnel in Serbia. Laughter became rather strained when we realised the horn had gone too, but a friendly Fiat dealer in North Greece soon sorted us out.
We even managed a wry smile or two when our new best friend, Herr Haglet, handed us a rather large bill for the bodywork repairs he had just completed.
We brushed aside the never-ending rise in fuel prices and to balance the books, resolved to drink cheaper wine
We found a simple solution for our stuck waste water drain – biological soap powder and a bumpy road; not a moment too soon, as the smell was in danger of making us pass out.
And when our fresh water tank started emptying of its own accord in Poland, did we panic? Not much it has to be said.
It is hard to adequately describe the appeal of living in a Fiat van, albeit one with a Hymer coach built body attached, but perhaps a sense of freedom best sums it up.
Freedom from the drudgery of housework. Five minutes each day with a broom – 50p in Bulgaria – and a few all-purpose wipes is all it takes to keep it sparkling.
Freedom from the stultifying routine of an eight to seven existence that saps your soul as surely as it pays the bills.
Freedom from stuff – piles of half-read magazines and Sunday newspapers, 400 unseen cable channels, unopened junk mail, unworn shoes, unanswered phone calls, a fridge full of uneaten food…
We still have a few days left in our Hymer home from home and in our wilder moments, after a glass or two of wine, we talk about staying on the road, of becoming full-timers as they say in motor home world.
What is to stop us? The internet keeps us connected to home, our children are grown and we have no career ambitions left, none anyway that need to be, or indeed can be, realised in Scotland.
We are heading for the Champagne region of France where we fully intend to enjoy ourselves. Who knows what decisions we will make after a glass, or several of the finest fizz…

Pitstop in Bavaria

The entry in the visitor’s book for St Anna’s Church, Augsburg, was startling in its honesty.
Amid pleas for “God (to) save Italy” and “Germany too” and a heartfelt petition from a mother for a celestial intervention to cure her daughter’s arthritis, was a confident, yet anonymous, assertion that could only have been written by someone under thirty.
“Actually I have no wishes at the moment, and I suppose I am my own God anyway.”
Oh to be so satisfied with one’s lot. It won’t last. Life will pick her up, I say her because the handwriting was distinctly female, and toss her around before too long.
One day she will have plenty of wishes, if not for herself, for her children, her partner, her elderly parents…and while she may never believe in God, she will realise, eventually, that none of us are our own gods, we are simply human beings together, all struggling to make sense of this strange experience we call life.
I have been feeling a bit grumpy these last few days. Earlier this week we were forced to stop in the very small town of Muhlhausen in lower Bavaria for some emergency repairs to the motor home. Nothing serious, but it did mean we had to stay in a hotel for two days while the Hymer mechanic, Herr Haglet worked his magic.
We found a “pension” right next door to the repair shop, a short bus ride from the city of Augsburg. It looked great on its website – they always do – but alarm bells started ringing when we asked if the heating could be switched on in our room. It was around ten degrees and my hands were tingling with the cold.
“I know it is cold, but the heating is switched off until September,” barked the handsome, but strangely detached owner. He seemed far more interested in his DIY than his guests, so we gave up and put on another layer.
The room was Ikea basic, the curtains were a calming shade of green, but only closed half way and were so sheer that the 4.30 dawn woke us each morning.
There were no water glasses or wastepaper bin, and when, on the first night of our stay, we asked what time the restaurant opened, we were taken aback by his answer.
“We are closed tonight, you could try the campsite down the road, it has a pizzeria.” It did, and we did.
Our stay reminded me of the worst of Scottish hospitality and those awful hoteliers who are more than happy to take your hard earned cash, but less keen to offer a decent service in return.
My worst experience was one Valentine weekend in the East Neuk of Fife, when, on telling a hotel receptionist that there was no hot water in our room, was startled by her response.
“Did you have a shower last night?” she asked.
“ Yes”, I responded warily.
“Then you won’t need one this morning,” she said triumphantly.
Welcome to Scotland, and lower Bavaria. We are off to the Champagne region.

A very modern man

Our enforced stay in Muhlhausen wasn’t all bad. We spent a very pleasant day in Augsburg, a city that I didn’t even know existed until a week ago.
My husband did. Apparently it is a post-industrial city and earlier this year, when he was still gainfully employed, he had toyed with idea of using it as a comparative city for an economic audit of Glasgow he was drafting. He decided against it, but was still keen to see it.
I was more interested in its shopping potential. Seven weeks without buying anything but wifi access and chocolate had left me slightly tetchy. I wanted some retail therapy and Augsburg seemed the place to do it.
After all, it was like Glasgow according to Nigel. I should have known he wasn’t talking about frocks.
There were plenty of shopping opportunities, I just hadn’t counted on German taste. Shop after shop offered sturdy clothes in ten shades of beige, enlivened only by the occasional flash of pastel pink or yellow. The shoes were very expensive, very well made, no doubt very comfortable, and very, very ugly. Ditto the bags.
I gave up after coming across a jacket featuring dominoes, yes dominoes, and headed for the birthplace of Bertolt Brecht, arguably the 20th century’s most influential playwright.
According to the guide book, the city of Augsburg had debated long and hard about how they should honour their most famous son, given that he had decided to live in East Berlin after the war, being of a socialist persuasion.
Luckily commonsense prevailed and his former family home has been transformed into a fitting memorial for a genius.
He may have died in 1956, but was a man of the 21st century. He embraced popular culture as well as high art. He loved boxing, revues, jazz, records, radio and film. He understood the plight of the individual in a mass society. And he liked the odd drink and cigar.
He wrote this short poem wrote in 1939, when in exile from Nazi Germany. It speaks for itself.

To those born later 3

You who will emerge from the flood
In which we have gone under
Remember
When you speak of our failings
The dark time too
Which you have escaped.

For we went, changing countries oftener than our shoes
Through the wars of the classes, despairing
When there was injustice only, and no rebellion.

And yet we know:
Hatred, even of meanness
Contorts the features.
Anger, even against injustice
Makes the voice hoarse. Oh, we
Who wanted to prepare the ground for friendliness
Could not ourselves be friendly

But you, when the time comes at last
And man is helper to man
Think of us
With forbearance.